Stevenage FC has begun work to improve its stadium – involving the chopping down of an area of woodland.

Dozens of trees have been felled beside the west stand of the club to make way for extra car parking as well as to make the club more visually prominent.

Planning permission for the work which will create 20 new spaces was granted by the borough council in January when permission was also given for the recladding of the west stand.

Club chairman Phil Wallace said the work was needed to improve “a real problem with access” after footfall at the club increased two to three hundred per cent in the last couple of years.

“The project is to expand the car park and make access safe which it was not, and then to put an extension over the existing gymnasium, and to put a new hospitality entrance at the side so that we have got two entrances to the west stand. Then we will reclad the whole west stand.”

Construction on the car park will start next week, with all work due to be completed for the start of next season.

Trees in Gonville Crescent in the town have also been felled as part of a borough council scheme to install 28 parking bays on the road.

The trees were assessed to ensure none were protected and all residents in the area were consulted a council spokesman said. No objections were received.